POW Partner Highlight: Surfdome, Internet Fusion Group
29th April 2022
Last week, one of our partners, Surfdome (part of Internet Fusion Group) released their latest carbon statement. It’s an in-depth update on the climate action they’ve taken towards Net Zero. The biggest topic they address is the difference between carbon neural and net zero. What is the difference? And is one better than the other?
From the article:
If the pipe is leaking, fix the leak.
It sounds an obvious enough thing to do, but people have a tendency to stand around the pipe brandishing a mop, telling everyone how they honestly mean to fix the leak at some point but there’s no need to worry, because look at this brilliant mop they’ve just bought. After all, fixing the leak sounds like a chore, which makes it all the more tempting to believe that the leak’s under control. And then the house floods.
Human-caused climate breakdown is like a really bad leak. It poses an urgent threat on a vast scale, and requires action that addresses the root cause: the amount of greenhouse gases being released into the atmosphere.
But most businesses are more interested in expanding the clean-up operation. Rather than working to reduce emissions at source – rather than fixing the leak – they pay to have the emissions “offset” so that they can achieve “carbon neutrality”.
The subtext is that business can continue as usual. It’s fine to carry on trashing the planet just so long as we mop up after ourselves, or pay somebody else to do it for us. The damage can be conveniently undone by the mysterious alchemy of offsets.
It’s an appealing notion. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work: the clean-up operation simply can’t keep pace with the leak. Offsets are rarely as effective as they claim. Meanwhile, and just as problematically, they provide false reassurance and encourage complacency.
A lot of approaches take aspects of both the net zero and carbon neutral approach, with the emphasis on reducing emissions, but doing offsetting where they haven’t yet gotten to zero. However what IFG is outlining is that offsets can’t be the only thing a company does. It’s not good enough.
Through the POW Pledge we help organisations take steps towards Net Zero, and the focus is on reducing emissions rather than offsetting. It’s a great starting point for organisations, and IFG is a great example of where it can help you get to.
We encourage you to go read the full report to see how they’ve made changes and how in some areas they’ve saved money by doing so.
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